This Week In Techdirt History: May 28th – June 3rd
from the happy-birthday-to-you,-copyright-(I-can-sing-that-now,-right?) dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2012, Google’s recently-unveiled tool for looking at DMCA takedown requests was revealing just how unbelievably stupid and bogus those requests so frequently are — but the RIAA was doing its best to blame its own failure to use the tools properly on Google, of course. Meanwhile, the government hit some speedbumps in its pursuit of Kim Dotcom when the New Zealand judge refused to rubber-stamp the extradition order, and the filings with the district court in the US revealed massive flaws in the government’s case. Also, it was this week in 2012 that the New York Times revealed the extensive and fascinating details of the Stuxnet worm, confirming that it was a US-led project in conjunction with Israel.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2007, the world was still trying to get its head around YouTube and the explosion of user-generated content. For some that meant pointing out how some of it sucks as if that means anything. For others (like governments around the world) that sometimes meant banning YouTube all together, or just trying to cleverly restrict user-generated content via “free trade” agreements. In Venezuela, however, YouTube became the new refuge for a traditional TV station that was shut down by the government.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2002, in the much earlier days of the DMCA, the EFF released a report detailing all the negative fallout of the anti-circumvention provisions for free speech, fair use, and innovation. Governments were struggling to figure out how national laws work on a borderless web, and Silicon Valley was realizing the necessity of dipping its toe into the Washington lobbying game. Meanwhile, Blockbuster was scrambling to go head-to-head with Netflix (and I think we all know how that worked out), online banking seemed to be finally taking off in the US (though that may have just been anecdotal), and the music industry was still not listening to the many people telling it what a big mistake it was making by shutting down Napster.
Two-Hundred And Twenty-Seven Years Ago
We recently noted the 1710 passage of the Statute of Anne, the original prototype copyright law — and this week we mark the formal beginning of the copyright saga in the US. It was on May 31st, 1790 that George Washington signed the Copyright Act into law. At the time, the Act was only half a page long, and applied only to books, maps, and charts — though musical compositions were routinely registered as books.
Comments on “This Week In Techdirt History: May 28th – June 3rd”
theresa may using terrorist attack to take surveil net more
ya know
maffia dont use the net to communicate
bikers dont use the net to communicate
why would terrorists do it
and so far NOT ONE terror attack has used the internet nor would having a chip in your head showing what you do on the net have stopped these people
talk about using victims for an agenda
all over reddit people are digusted , as well as nearly every web forum over here great speech until she yammered the net needs be clamped down on….
ya so you rich pandering power hungry greedy bastards can hear less form us poor folk
well you bitch over in canada we had a arab whom had robbed the place i eat breakfast at try it a 2nd time ….i took em outside and smashed his head off a sidewalk
he went on to rob 6 other places